Transforming Communities through Restorative Solutions

Restorative Practices focus on building, maintaining, and when necessary, repairing relationships among all members of the school community when harm occurs. Restorative practices encourage accountability that emphasize empathy and obligation to repair harm, and is designed to foster a climate of belonging and security and keep students learning in the classroom. The restorative approach is based on a set of guiding principles and practices for the school community. It sees relationships as central to learning, growth and an inclusive, respectful school culture. It is a paradigm shift from traditional rule-based, punitive discipline systems to a system where growth and transformation are the main goals. 

Restorative Justice Education (RJE) is a whole-school approach that prioritizes relationships, builds community, creates just and equitable learning environments, supports struggling students, teaches peaceful conflict resolution, and repairs relationships after a harm has occurred.

It depends on what Action Plan model you choose to implement. We encourage you to contact us so we can customize a plan for your goals and funding potential. However, over the years we have found that it costs about $10,000-$15,000/school/year for at least two years to implement it well. We base our scaffolded Action Plan models on a Training of Trainers approach so that within 2-3 years you have the capacity to proceed mostly on your own with occasional support from us.

Teachers are asked to do four things:

• Hold Connection Circles with students (1x week elementary; 1-3x/week middle; 1x/week high. Start by holding Circles either 1x/week for 2 weeks OR as listed above for 6-8 weeks for middle and high) and Problem Solving/Responsive Circles as needed;
• Use Affective and Relationship Building Statements with students on a daily basis (including greeting students at the door and taking the first 2 weeks of school to build your classroom community);
• Hold Restorative Conversations with students instead of sending them out of class; and
• Use these skills with colleagues to build/maintain a culture of trust.

Administrators and Support Staff are asked to do four things:

• Be a part of an Implementation Team that meets regularly and uses data to assess progress and set goals;
• Hold Restorative Mediations and Conferences for issues that are more serious and/or involve two or more students;
• Hold Restorative Conversations with students instead of sending them out of class; and
• Use these skills with colleagues to build/maintain a culture of trust.

The restorative approach is a philosophical approach that has flexibility in implementation as long as the philosophy is adhered to. There is no “one size fits all” method of implementation. School context is important to consider and be used when implementing with fidelity. Fidelity is achieved by ongoing training, coaching, and support.

Research shows a reduction in suspensions, expulsions, and (negative) behaviors/incidents and improvements in perception of school safety and academic improvement. Restorative Solutions, our technical assistance provider, notes that those teachers who embrace this philosophy and method of interacting with students find that their students’ test scores increase in the first year. Strengthened relationships, student engagement in productive dialogue with teachers, teachers sharing power in the classroom, and student practice of critical thinking and emotional expression contribute to increased test scores and academic achievement. (Also, see attached handout on statistics)

We work with schools to set up an effort that is specifically designed to use best practices of implementation science, which seeks to develop programs that last over time and are implemented with fidelity. We encourage schools to take their time and build the program over a span of 3-7 years.

The suggested minimum requirement for teachers is to hold Connection Circles once a week for 15-30 minutes. Ideally, middle school teachers would hold Connection Circles 2-3x/week. Other practices can be implemented as able, such as having 5-10 minute informal conversations with students about discipline or classroom issues. Relationship building practices, such as using students names, getting to know their lives, and using restorative language when correcting behavior don’t take time when using but may take time to learn. Problem Solving Circles often take 30-50 minutes. Classroom benefits are often achieved within 2-3 months of sincere, consistent application.

Yes, “traditional” disciplinary practices could also be used if needed and when used in conjunction with restorative practices. Students may still be suspended but their days out of school are often decreased. The main effort is to reduce the need for punitive/exclusionary discipline practices. Consequences are still a part of discipline but they are co-created rather than imposed from above. Implementing restorative practices is not meant to be just a kinder and gentler way of excluding and punishing students. A paradigm shift is required and expected, though this may take time to be fully implemented.

This is dependent on the school’s desires and capacity to engage them. Engaging the community in this project may be a critical factor in creating a successful and sustainable program that meets the needs of the school and its community. We will work with the implementation team to design a plan for effectively engaging the community so that the program is culturally relevant.

The first step is to evaluate where you are starting from and if your school or district is ready to add something new.  You don’t want to add another new initiative if your plate is already full.  But, if you and your leadership team feel ready to add Restorative Practices to your school culture and climate efforts and sense there would be a willingness from your staff, assess your budget, your team and your goals and begin to lay out a very simple strategic plan. See what teams already exist and if you can consolidate them with a common focus. Next, put together your Implementation Team and start evaluating and planning the next steps.  You may already have some school climate and culture practices that you can build upon and some practices and philosophies that need to change.  Training this team in the basics of Restorative Practices and Implementation Science is better than training all staff at the start and ensures your rollout is well-planned, well-thought-out, and more impactful.

It depends on whether you are training one school or an entire district.  At the district level, the team should represent key personnel of its leadership.  At the school level, the team needs to reflect the make-up of the school.  It needs to represent the voices of students, parents, teachers, administration, and support staff.  The team should have enough people so that any task, like planning and training, can be assigned without overburdening any person or group—5-7 people might be a good start.  Be sure your team has a few initial skeptics, so their concerns can be heard, validated, and addressed when necessary.

While implementation requires learning new skills and practices and unlearning others, it can be done in chunks over time, though starting with at least one full day at the beginning is vital. Assess what time you can devote to it and keep at it for a few years. It can look like a lot but take it a step at a time.  A well thought out, strategic plan spread out over 3 to 5 years looks a lot less scary.  And there are many ways to deliver learning, including hour long PDs each month, book clubs, movie nights, professional learning communities, and classroom visits.  Be careful to avoid the “spray and pray” approach to training as it rarely results in building a restorative school culture.

It depends. Are you willing to make a 3 to 5 year commitment to the initiative?  We do not recommend introductory, one-day, or two-day training that is not part of a larger blueprint to becoming a restorative school culture for several reasons.  Training in restorative practices out of the context of a whole-school change plan is counter-productive.  You want training in this work developed in the context of an effective strategy for long-term culture change.  Changing hearts, minds, and classroom practices take time, so training needs to be ongoing over several years.  Effective change needs to be supported by policy and procedural changes.  You may find that educators become frustrated when they discover the system won’t allow them to use what they learned and do not have the support they need.  To make effective, sustainable change, you want all training coordinated by the implementation team.  This team plans the time, training, and support the school/district needs.  This team also monitors the practices and skills rolled out according to the plan.

While Restorative Practices is not inherently trauma-informed and doesn’t address specific issues in DEI (like biases, micro-aggressions, etc) by itself, it has some key elements that go a long way towards being trauma-informed and equitable.  That said, we encourage all schools to compliment the work of Restorative Practices with trainings in trauma-informed care and DEI. They simply go hand in hand. As our colleague Joe Brummer says, “we need to be mindful that a child or adult, who has experienced trauma in their past, is impacted by a circle process in the present. Racism, homophobia, sexism, adultism, and classism are also forms of trauma found in schools.  You will need to dismantle systems in place that perpetuate oppression if your school is to be trauma-informed.  Educators need a deeper understanding of how traumatic experiences and toxic stress impact the development of children’s bodies and brains.  This new approach will require the same elements listed above, a team, a plan, and some dedicated learning and unlearning.”

The short answer is, “why bother if you’re not all in?” There are so many reasons for doing this work and if you’re clear on why you are doing it and the benefits you expect to achieve, then it should be easy to go “all in”. Just recognize that doing it piecemeal without a plan often backfires. You won’t gain enough momentum and staff will think this is just another program that comes and goes. But if you have a long term plan, then starting small and continuing over a period of time can certainly work. As we said above, hour long PDs once a month, book clubs, movie nights, and webinars are easy and simple ways to introduce these practices.  We offer “mini-modules” that break up the material into bite-sized pieces. Ultimately, you will need to develop a full plan for implementation with benchmarks, professional development schedules, policy and procedural changes, and accountability.

For starters, unless there is full buy in from the staff already, we suggest starting with training a core team.  This team learns the material, practices it for a while and as they go, creates a 3-year plan that they can bring back to the staff for their approval.  The plan tells you who receives training, when, and what they need to learn.  Currently, we offer a 6-day training offered in 2-day blocks (Restorative Practices in the Classroom, Restorative Mediation & Conferencing, and Active Implementation & Evaluation).  There are a few weeks in-between sessions to allow for experimenting with the new learning and unlearning.  During the training, the team creates the 3-year plan customized for your school with an eye on change-management.  This approach ensures implementation is being done “with” staff rather than being done “to” or “for” them.  Your team knows the best ways to make these principles and practices work with your students, families, and community.*